Chinese Zodiac Collab

Feb 23, 2018

Back again in celebration of the Chinese New Year, Laura organized 10 of us from the motioncollabs group to animate the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. The idea was for each of us to animate a zodiac animal in the style of a badass video game character intro. Our restrictions were a 4-color palette and 5 seconds to express our character.

You can read more about the project and find credits listed on the vimeo page. Give the motioncollabs channel a follow as well!

The Details

Early design sketches.

I designed and animated the rooster. I originally set out to do an exaggerated, comical approach with a bigger comb and stubbier legs but went with a more realistic figure that turned out to be more fun to animate. I rigged up the tail with a ton of duik bones set to loop seamlessly with the wiggle() expression. The initial pass for the run cycle was blocked out with a reference video and refined towards the end of the deadline. Designing and animating the main scenes came hours before the deadline was over. If you’re feeling nosy, here’s the 595 KB project file.

Run Cycle

I’m happy with the outcome, it was an exciting project to see come together that gave me a chance to dig deeper into rigging and animation. For motioncollab four, we’re doing a big quilt project with about 50 members. Sign-ups have closed and we start on the 25th, stay tuned for post when that project closes. In the meantime, check out the motioncollabs vimeo and instagram accounts.